GREEK ANDROMAN ACTORSAspects of an Ancient Profession

EDITED BY

PAT EASTERLINGRegius Professor of Greek Emeritus, University of Cambridge

AND

EDITH HALLLeverhulme Professor of Greek Cultural History, University of Durham

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Contents

List of illustrations page viiList of contributors xiiPreface xviiAcknowledgements xxiiiList of abbreviations xxivMaps xxviii

PART ONE THE ART OF THE ACTOR

The singing actors of antiquity Edith Hall

The musicians among the actors Peter Wilson

The use of the body by actors in tragedy and satyr-play Kostas Valakas

Towards a reconstruction of performance style Richard Green

Kallippides on the floor-sweepings: the limits of realismin classical acting and performance styles Eric Csapo

Looking for the actor’s art in Aristotle G. M. Sifakis

Acting, action and words in New Comedy Eric Handley

‘Acting down’: the ideology of Hellenistic performance Richard Hunter

v

vi Contents

PART TWO THE PROFESSIONAL WORLD

Nothing to do with the technıtai of Dionysus? Jane L. Lightfoot

Actors and actor–managers at Rome in the timeof Plautus and Terence Peter G. McC. Brown

The masks on the propylon of the Sebasteionat Aphrodisias John Jory

Images of performance: new evidence from Ephesus Charlotte Roueche

Female entertainers in late antiquity Ruth Webb

Acting in the Byzantine theatre: evidence and problems Walter Puchner

PART THREE THE IDEA OF THE ACTOR

Actor as icon Pat Easterling

Scholars versus actors: text and performance in theGreek tragic scholia Thomas Falkner

Orator and/et actor Elaine Fantham

Acting and self-actualisation in imperial Rome:some death scenes Catharine Edwards

The subjectivity of Greek performance Ismene Lada-Richards

The ancient actor’s presence since the Renaissance Edith Hall

Glossary List of works cited Index of major ancient passages cited General Index

Illustrations

Cover Bell krater with Dionysiac scene. Apulia, early fourthcentury BC, c. – BC. Earthenware with slip decoration, . × . cm. c© The Cleveland Museum of Art, JohnL. Severance Fund, ..

Thamyras and his mother Argiope: played by Sophocles(?)and Aeschylus’ son Euaion. Attic hydria, c. BC. Vatican,Museo Etrusco Gregoriano. Photo: J. R. Green. page

The blinded Polymestor in Euripides’ Hecuba. Apulian vase(Loutrophoros) from the workshop of the Darius Painter, thirdquarter of the fourth century BC. c© The BritishMuseum, inv. .–..

The ‘Oslo’ papyrus showing words and melodies for a recitalof songs aboutNeoptolemus.P. Oslo . Universitetsbibliotekin Oslo. Photo: Adam Bulow-Jacobsen/AIP Archive.

Mask of singing actor of tragedy. Ivory miniature, Caerleon.By permission of the National Museum of Wales.

Mask of singing actor of tragedy. Glass oinochoe found nearthe Stazione di S. Rossore, Pisa. SoprintendenzaArcheologicaper la Toscana – Firenze, neg. /.

The famous piper Pronomos of Thebes, seated with his satyrchorusmen. Attic red-figure volute-krater, late fifth century BC

(ARV , ). Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. (H ). Drawing reproduced from FR, III. –.

Piper with double pipes. Attic red-figure krater, c. BC

(ARV , ). Paris, Louvre, inv. CA . Photo: M. andP. Chuzeville.

Potamonof Thebeswithhis fatherOlympichos.Relief carvingfrom near Phaleron: funerary stele with epigram. Athens,National Archaeological Museum, inv. . c© DAI Athens,neg. no. NM .

vii

viii List of illustrations

Auletes in performance. Attic red-figure volute-kraterattributed to the Pronomos Painter, late fifth century BC

(ARV , ). Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale,inv. (H ). Reproduced from Stephanis(), fig. .

Chorus performing as satyrs with piper and a standing figure.Attic red-figure hydria attributed to the Leningrad Painter,c. – BC. c© Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All rightsreserved.)

Chorus performing as satyrs with piper and standing figure(far right) who may be a choregos. Attic volute-krater, c. BC

(ARV , ). Ferrara, Museo Archeologico Nazionale diSpina, inv. . Photo: Hirmer Verlag.

Contrasts in physical attitudes: actors of the ComedieFrancaise in the s and the Greek vase paintings they usedas models. Reproduced from Barba and Saverese (), .

Detail from the Pronomos Vase depicting Heracles andother members of the cast of a satyr-play. Attic red-figurevolute-krater, late fifth century BC (ARV , ). Naples,Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. (H ). Photo:J. R.Green after FR.

The Choregos Vase, showing a tragic actor with three comicactors. Tarentine red-figure bell krater, early fourth centuryBC. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. .AE. (ex coll.Fleischman, F ). Photo: Museum.

Two tragic chorusmen preparing for performance. Atticred-figure pelike attributed to the Phiale Painter, c. BC.Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. .. Photo: Museum.

Tragic actor holding his mask. Tarentine Gnathia bell-kraterfragment attributed to the Konnakis Painter, c. BC.Wurzburg, Martin von Wagner Museum der Universitat, inv.H (L). Photo: Museum.

Tragic messenger witnessing the death of Hippolytus.Tarentine red-figure volute-krater attributed to the DariusPainter, third quarter of the fourth century BC. London,BritishMuseum, inv. .–. (F ). Photo: Museum.

Tragic actor in the role of a youngman. (Athenian?) terracottafigurine, perhaps c. BC. Nicosia, Cyprus Museum, inv. CS

/. Photo: Museum. A messenger bringing news. Scene of a tragedy in

List of illustrations ix

performance: Oedipus Tyrannus? Sicilian (Syracusan?)red-figure calyx-krater, third quarter of the fourthcentury BC. Syracuse, Museo Archeologico, inv. .Photo: E. W. Handley.

Three women responding to a messenger’s news. Scene of atragedy in performance. Sicilian (Syracusan?) red-figurecalyx-krater, third quarter of the fourth century BC.Caltanissetta, Museo Civico. Reproduced from IGD,III. , .

Comic performance: naked male pursued by pretendHeracles. Tarentine red-figure bell-krater attributed to theLecce Painter, towards the middle of the fourth century BC.Nicholson Museum, Sydney University, inv. .. Photo:Museum.

Comic performance: hetaira, old man, slave carrying chest.Tarentine red-figure bell-krater attributed to the JasonPainter, towards the middle of the fourth century BC.Copenhagen, National Museet, inv. . Photo: Museum.

Comic performance: woman, youth, slave in disguise as youngwoman, old man with stick. Sicilian (Syracusan?) red-figurecalyx-krater attributed to the Manfria Painter, third quarterof the fourth century BC. Museo Regionale, Messina. Photocourtesy Professor Umberto Spigo.

Comic actor playing young woman. Athenian terracottafigurine, early fourth century BC. The State HermitageMuseum, St Petersburg, inv. BB . Photo: Museum.

Comic actor playing young woman. Athenian terracottafigurine, perhaps second quarter of the fourth century BC.Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, inv. . . Photo:Museum.

Comic actor playing young woman. Athenian terracottafigurine, beginning of the fourth century BC. New York,Metropolitan Museum, inv. ... Photo: J. R. Greenafter Bieber.

Comic actor playing young woman. Terracotta figurine,Corinthian copy of an Athenian original, near the middleof the fourth century BC. London, British Museum, inv..–.. Photo: J. R. Green.

Comic actor playing young woman. Athenian terracottafigurine, near the middle of the fourth century BC. Athens,

x List of illustrations

National Archaeological Museum, inv. . Photo:J. R. Green.

Comic actor playing young woman. Athenian terracottafigurine, third quarter of the fourth century BC. London,British Museum, inv. .–. (C ). Photo: J. R. Green.

Three mime actors performingMother-in-Law. Athenianterracotta group, probably endof the third century BC.Athens,National Archaeological Museum, inv. . Photo:B. Kohlen, M. Gladbach.

Two tragic masks and one pantomime mask. Dedication oncinerary urn, Rome, early second century AD. Paris, Louvre,neg. Ma . Photo: M. and P. Chuzeville.

Four masks for performances in tragedy, pantomime andcomedy. Fragment of lid of sarcophagus (?), Rome, secondhalf of third century AD. Vatican Museum, inv. . Photo:J. R. Green.

View of Sebasteion at Aphrodisias. Photo: J. Jory. Part of Sebasteion frieze. Aphrodisias. Photo: J. Jory. Part of Sebasteion frieze. Aphrodisias. Photo: J. Jory. Part of Sebasteion frieze. Aphrodisias. Photo: J. Jory. Part of Sebasteion frieze. Aphrodisias. Photo: J. Jory. Mask of young female, perhaps amaenad.Aphrodisias. Photo:

J. Jory. Mask of young female and two young males. Aphrodisias.

Photo: J. Jory. Ephesus, Theatre graffito , i–iii. Photo: Charlotte Roueche. Ephesus, Theatre graffito , iv–v. Photo: Charlotte Roueche. Ephesus, Theatre graffito .i. Photo: Stefan Karwiese. Ephesus, Theatre graffito .ii. Photo: Stefan Karwiese. Ephesus: Theatre graffito .iii. Photo: Charlotte Roueche. Ephesus, Theatre graffito a. Photo: Osterreichisches

Archaologisches Institut. Ephesus, Theatre graffito b. Photo: Denis Feissel. Ephesus, Theatre graffito c. Photo: Osterreichisches

Archaologisches Institut. Ephesus, Theatre graffito d. Drawing courtesy of the

Osterreichisches Archaologisches Institut. Ephesus, Theatre graffito . Drawing courtesy of the

Osterreichisches Archaologisches Institut.

List of illustrations xi

Ephesus, Theatre graffito . Drawing courtesy of theOsterreichisches Archaologisches Institut.

Ephesus, Theatre graffito . Drawing courtesy of theOsterreichisches Archaologisches Institut.

Aphrodisias, Odeion graffito. Photo: Mehmet AliDogenci, Aphrodisias Excavations, New York University.

Aphrodisias, Odeion graffito. Photo: Mehmet AliDogenci, Aphrodisias Excavations, New York University.

Aphrodisias, Odeion graffito. Photo: Mehmet AliDogenci, Aphrodisias Excavations, New York University.

Memorial stele of the mime actress Bassilla. Thirdcentury AD. Trieste, Museo Archeologico di Aquileia,inv. . Reproduced from Scrinari (), fig. .

Diptych relief of Anastasios, consul in AD , showing sceneswith actors (Delbrueck N ). The State Hermitage Museum,St Petersburg.

Actor in the role of paidagogos. Gnathia calyx-krater,mid-fourth century BC. New York, private collection.Photo courtesy W. Puhze.

Prize-winning actor in tragic costume dedicating his mask.Wall-painting from Herculaneum. Copy of Greek model,c. BC. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale. Photo(Anderson no. ) courtesy of the Mansell Collection.

Tragic actors in the roles of Orestes and Electra inEuripides’ Orestes. Wall-painting, Ephesus, ‘Hanghaus ’,later second century AD. Reproduced from Strocka ( ),, no. (ill.), by permission of the OsterreichischesArchaologisches Institut.

Acting and rhetoric: Andronikos and Demosthenes balancedby Roscius and Cicero. Frontispiece of John Bulwer’sChironomia, . By permission of the British Library.

First performance of Thespis. Illustrated London News. Drawingcourtesy of the Archive of Performances of Greek and RomanDrama, University of Oxford.

CHAPTER ONE

The singing actors of antiquity

Edith Hall

INTRODUCTION

At the turn of the fifth century AD Augustine confesses to having some-times neglected the spiritual content of the psalms of David because hehas been distracted – evenmoved to tears – by the beauty of the voices hehas heard singing them.Augustine therefore approves of theAlexandrianbishop Athanasius, who attempted to protect his congregation’s spiritualpurity by instructing ‘the reader of the psalm to sound it forth with suchslight vocal modulation ( f lexu vocis) that it was nearer to speaking thanto singing’ (Conf. .).Augustine’s supposedly shameful passion for vocal music had been

fed by his successful participation, as a young pagan, in theatricalsinging competitions (Conf. .). He recalls a solo he used to sing entitledThe Flying Medea (Medea volans, .). The tragic theme implies thatAugustine performed in costume andwith gestures as a tragoedus or tragicuscantor (a ‘tragic singer’). We do not know whether this aria was com-posed in the first person, requiring the singer to impersonate Medeaas she flew, but it was certainly much performed (.). Augustine’s tes-timony opens a fascinating window on the late Roman theatre, wherefamous songs on mythical themes were still being sung by expert singers,more than eight centuries since the first actor to impersonate Euripides’Medea had flown off to Athens in the chariot borrowed from the Sun.In antiquity, when our modern genres of musical theatre, opera and themusical, had not yet been invented, but which relished expert singingto a degree unsurpassed by music lovers today, the relationship of theart of acting to the art of singing was often inextricable. This chap-ter leads into the book’s reappraisal of the profession of the ancientplayer via an unorthodox but illuminating route, which traces the history

If he could play the citharaMedea volans just might have been a ‘citharoedic’ performance (Kelly() –).

Edith Hall

of the singing actor from democratic Athens to beyond Augustine’sday.This story is co-extensive with ancient theatrical activity, which can

still be documented at Epidauros and Athens in the late fourth centuryAD, and at Aphrodisias as late as the seventh. Theatrical singers areattested from tragedies of Thespis in the sixth century BC to the Byzantinetheatres in which Theodora performed in the sixth century AD, whenthe word ‘tragedy’ gave rise to what is still the word for ‘song’ in theGreek language (tragoudi, see Puchner, this volume). Vocal performancesthrilled audiences not only across many centuries but also across a hugegeographical area, for the Roman empire saw theatres built from Britainand western Portugal to North Africa and the far east of modern Turkey.Even some small cities had anOdeion in addition to one ormore theatres(on the fascinating graffiti depicting performers drawn on the Odeionat Aphrodisias see further Roueche, this volume). It is revealing that inthe second century AD Pausanias says that one reason Panopeus scarcelydeserves to be called a city is because it had no theatre at all (..);two centuries later, when Eunapius wants to illustrate the primitivism ofsome Spanish barbarians, he portrays their astonishment at the singingof a travelling tragic actor (see below, ‘Conclusion’).Although it is fashionable to stress that the ancient Greek and Latin

words for a theatrical audience (theatai, spectatores) prioritised the act ofwatching, many ancient authors acknowledge the importance of theaural impact of drama on the ‘spectator’. The discussion of tragedyin Aristophanes’ Frogs focuses extensively on music and rhythm, Platodisapprovingly refers to spectators’ sympathywith heroes ‘delivering longspeeches or singing (aidontas) and beating themselves’ (Rep. .c–e),Aristotle regards songwriting (melopoiia) as a more significant source oftragic pleasure than the visual dimension (Poet. b–, see Sifakis,this volume), and Plutarch describes the experience of watching tragedyas ‘a wonderful aural and visual experience’.

The solo singing voice was particularly associated with Greektragedy. Early tragic actors’ roles may have consisted almost entirelyof singing; by Hellenistic times the Athenian guild of actors worshippedDionysus under the title ‘Melpomenos’ (see Lightfoot, this volume), and See Green (a) –. ��������� ����� � ����� (On the Renown of the Athenians = Mor. C). By the end of thefourth century AD, when tragic songs had become dissociated from staged production, it is naturalto Jerome to refer in his commentary onEzechiel to the pleasure of people ‘who listen to either tragicor comic actors’ (vel tragoedos audiunt vel comoedos, . , –, Migne, PL vol. () col. ).

In the earliest extant tragedy, Aeschylus’ Persians, King Xerxes’ entire role is in song or recitative(Hall (a) ), and it is just possible that some truth lies behind the statement in Philostratus

The singing actors of antiquity

Melpomene, the muse who represented tragedy, derived her name fromthe same basic verb meaning ‘sing’. But the singing voice was heardin all the other types of ancient drama and their adaptations – satyrplay, Old Comedy, Greek and Roman New Comedy, Atellan farce,

Roman tragedy, virtuoso recitals of excerpts from old dramas, pan-tomime, mime, and such curiosities as Philoxenus’ Cyclops, a light-hearted work on a mythical theme for two solo singers and an aulete,which has been compared with a chamber opera. There were also innu-merable sub-theatrical entertainers whose acts involved singing, includ-ing jugglers (Theophr. Char. . ), the hilarodes and Simodes who sangrisque parodies of highbrow musical compositions, and the magodeswho banged cymbals and drums while impersonating such figures asa drunk singing a serenade. Nor did theatrical singers confine theirart to theatres: tragoidoi, for example, are found performing on boardAlcibiades’ trireme when he returned from exile in BC (Duris, FGrH F ), at the five-day wedding celebrations of Alexander the Great atSusa (Chares, FGrH F ), and at symposia throughout antiquity fromMacedonia to Mauretania.

TRAGEDY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS

Tragedy developed in what Herington stressed was ‘a song culture’.

Many fifth-century spectators of drama will themselves have sung at oneof the several Athenian festivals where fifty-strong choruses of men and

that it was Aeschylus who invented spoken dialogue (antilexeis) for the actors, ‘discarding the longmonodies of the earlier time’ (Life of Apollonius .).

It probably has implications for the way tragedy was being performed by late antiquity that onartefacts Melpomene represents tragedy in contrast to Pol(h)ymnia, the newmuse of pantomime(see further below).Ona third-centuryRomanmosaic atElis there are images symbolising all ninemuses, including Melpomene, Thalia and Polymnia, who are represented by theatrical masks:see Yalouris (). On a fourth-century silver casket found on the Esquiline these theatricalmuses are depicted holding their masks ( Jory () – and figs. and ).

In Petronius, Sat. Trimalchio says he had bought a troupe of professional (Greek) comic actorsbut compelled them to perform Atellan farces and his choraules (see below n. ) to sing in Latin:malui illos Atellaniam facere, et choraulen meum iussi Latine cantare.

See e.g. the canticum from the mime The Silphium Gatherer (Laserpiciarius Mimus), sung in a foulvoice (taeterrima voce) by Trimalchio at his dinner party (Petronius Sat. , Bonaria () ).Although it has been argued that Greek mime did not involve much use of music (Cunningham() ), it is difficult to see what other genre the so-called ‘Charition mime’ might belong to,and it is preserved on a papyrus (P Oxy. , edited in Grenfell and Hunt ()) which maywell have been a musician’s copy: it contains signs at several points which are almost certainlyinstructions to play percussion instruments and probably auloi (see GLP –).

PMG frr. –. See Arist. Poet. a–, West (a) . See Maas ( ) and Hunter, this volume.

See Easterling (d) and Easterling, this volume. Herington () –.

Edith Hall

boys competed. The Athenians knew many songs by heart – hymns,songs to congratulate athletes and military victors, processional songs,drinking songs, work songs, lullabies, medical and magical incantations,and songs tomark courtship,marriage, birth, and death. They sang themmore often than modern individuals whose personal repertoire scarcelyextends beyond Happy Birthday and Auld Lang Syne can possibly imagine.Many songs in tragedy (and comedy, see below) are derived from one ofthese pre-existing genres of ‘ritual’ or ‘activity’ song and are in the lyricmetres appropriate to them. But tragedy’s material was mostly drawnfrom the world of myth, inherited, rather, from epics and from chorallyrics, especially those of Stesichorus.Tragic poetry is ‘adorned with various rhythms and includes a wealth

of metres’, observed the Byzantine scholar Psellus. Tragedy’s innova-tion was to integrate genres into a complicated artistic pattern: spokenverse alternated with various types of sung poetry, performed to the ac-companiment of auloi by both a chorus and individual actors. The tragicactor made use of a metre long associated with marching armies, the‘recitative’ anapaest, whose basic unit is repeated pairs of ˘˘ – . Anapaestspredominate at times of physical movement, especially entrances and ex-its such as the airborne departure of Euripides’ Medea. The anapaesticmetre there indicates thatMedea and Jason performed their interchangeto aulos accompaniment in a rhythmical, semi-musical type of vocal de-livery, in antiquity designated by the verb katalegein, and perhaps compa-rable with the intermediate form of enunciation later recommended toChristian psalmodists by Bishop Athanasius. Like rhapsodes and cithar-odes, the tragic actor also needed mastery over the dactylic hexameter,at least when impersonating mythical bards such as Thamyras or Am-phion (see furtherWilson, this volume). But in addition he had to performnew sung metres, especially the excited dochmiac (based on ˘ – – ˘ – ).Dochmiacsmake no appearance prior to tragedy and virtually disappearafter it, but often characterise the genre’s most emotionally laceratingmoments.

The actor of fifth-century tragedy had to sing in a variety of metresin rapid succession, and to negotiate the delicate transitions between

A thousand citizens will have performed every year at the City Dionysia in dithyrambic chorusesalone, even before the tragic and comic choruses are taken into account (West (a) ).

� ������ ������� ��������� �� ������� ��������� � ����� ������ ���������� (Dyck() –).

West (a) . See e.g. Soph. Philoctetes – and the comments of West (a) . This skill would have

been considered remarkable by Aristoxenus’ day, when the emphasis on rhythmical intricacyhad been superseded by a love of melody ([Plut.] On Music B–C).

The singing actors of antiquity

them: the shift between recitative and lyrics was regarded as particu-larly emotive ([Arist.] Probl. .). Anapaestic and lyric verses repeatedlyalternated with iambic trimeters, and these were spoken. Besides someimportant external evidence, tragic poetry offers internal clues to theway in which the voice was being used; in iambics people constantly usesuch verbs as legein and phrazein in reference to their own speech andthat of their interlocutors, whereas the semantic range referring to lyricutterance, which includes melpein and aidein, is quite different.

Tragedy thus offered the dramatist a palette of vocal techniques withwhich to paint his sound pictures, and certain patterns can be discernedin the way that he handled them. Gods and slaves, for example, rarelysing lyrics in tragedy, but they do recite anapaests. Sophoclean leads allsing at moments of great emotion, female characters frequently sing,but middle-aged men in Aeschylus and Euripides (with the exception ofdistressed barbarians) prefer spoken rhetoric to extended lyrics. Thiscomplex metrical and vocal prosopography was unprecedented. Athensinvented tragedy at a time when it was staking claim to be the culturalleader of the Greek world, and it is possible, from a sociological angle,to view tragedy’s appropriation of metres associated with other placesas Athenian cultural imperialism manifested on the level of form. Butit is equally important to stress the aesthetic achievement represented bytragedy’s elaborate design.Expert singers, rhapsodes and citharodes, had been singing Greek

myths long before the emergence of the specialist tragoidos: the Iliad,after all, opens ‘Muse, sing (aeide) of the wrath of Achilles’. But the termaeidein demonstrates how close an affinity was perceived between theperformances of the epic and the tragic singer, for together with itscognates aeidein provided many of the basic words for ‘singing’ bothepic and drama in Greek literature, and formed the second half of thecompounds denoting almost all specialist singers, including kitharoidos,tragoidos and komoidos. Etymologically related to aeidein are both aude (thehuman voice, endowed with speech), and aedon, ‘nightingale’, a birdwhose plaintive song brought it into association with lachrymose womenfrom Penelope of theOdyssey onwards (.–). But it was with female Two important passages in Aristotle associate the iambic metre with speech (Poet. a–

, Rhet. .b–); in Lucian’s caricatures of tragoidoi, he complains that the performerscontemporary with him ‘even’ sing their iambics, implying that this practice is a decadentmodern development (see below).

Although Barner () collects some of the Greek tragic terms designating song, muchwork remains to be done on the numerous different words used in tragedy to describe vocalperformance, and on how they might illuminate actors’ techniques of singing and speaking.

See Hall (a) – and Csapo, this volume. Hall (a) , ; Hall (a) –.

Edith Hall

singing in tragedy that the nightingale, formerly Procne, the infanticidalmother, became most closely connected.The story of Procne’s murder of her son Itys was staged in Sophocles’

famous Tereus (the music of which seems to have been memorable, seebelow) and by the Roman tragedians Livius Andronicus and Accius.Elsewhere tragedy alludes to thismythwhen describing women’s singing.In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, for example, Cassandra’s dochmiac singing islikened by the chorus (also using dochmiacs) to the song of the nightingale(–):

CHORUS You are crazed, possessed by a god, and singing a tuneless tune aboutyour own fate, like some shrill nightingale, insatiable in lament – alas! –who in the misery of her heart mourns ‘Itys, Itys’, whose death was full ofevil for both his parents.

CASSANDRA Ah, ah, for the life of the clear-voicednightingale!The gods clothedher in winged form, and gave her a sweet life with nothing to cry about,whereas for me there awaits the blow of a two-edged weapon.

The comparison was presumably reinforced by the lost melody, and cer-tainly by the ‘twittering’ effect produced by the high proportion of shortsyllables in the resolved dochmiacs of this particular interchange; thechorus’ description of Cassandra’s melody as a ‘tuneless tune’ (nomonanomon) itself scans as five short syllables consecutively. Cassandra, how-ever, shifts the focus from the bird’s voice to her winged body, remindingus that the singing actor playing her is engaged in an emphatically phys-ical activity.

The actor playingCassandra needed skill in antiphonal singing, whichrequires a solo voice with a timbre distinct from that of the choral groupbut minutely adjusted to its tonality and pace of delivery. Cassandra’ssung dialogue with the chorus consists of serial pairs of metrical unitsof similar length, which respond strophically. The structured rhythmi-cal character of Aeschylus’ music is suggested by Dionysus’ descriptionin Frogs of his melodies as appropriate for ‘someone drawing waterfrom a well’ ( ). But tragic music evolved alongside that of cithar-ody and dithyrambic choruses, which had already been composed with-out strophic responsion by the middle of the fifth century (Arist. Rhet..b).In Euripides’ dateable plays actors’ songs increasingly replace

strophic responsion with asymmetric, ‘freeform’ metrical structures, Segal () . See Valakas, this volume. See also Aeschylus’ Danaids, who compare their own

singing with the voice of the nightingale, the wife of Tereus (Supp. – ), and the commentsbelow on Sophocles’ Electra.

The singing actors of antiquity

characterised by repetition of individual words. Euripides’ astrophicmonodists are mostly self-absorbed women, who use song to express in-timate andpassionate emotions. Astrophic song ismuchharder to learnthan song in a repeated metre, which is one reason why it was associatedwith the solo voice rather than with choruses ([Arist.] Probl. .). But italso increased the ornamentation and mimetic element (see Csapo, thisvolume) and affected the vocal timbre. Timotheus, the citharode mostclosely associated with the ‘New Music’ influencing Euripides, differen-tiated his own relaxed, beguiling sound from that of older, out-of-datesingers, ‘the maulers’ of songs ‘who strain and yell with the far-ringingvoices of heralds’ (�� !� ���������"�!� ��������� #����, PersiansPMG , –).A plausible tradition held that the earliest tragedians were star actors

and took the principal roles in their own plays. Sophocles is said tohave played the lead in his own Thamyras, in which this mythical bardperformed hexameters and played the cithara (Life ; fr. TrGF, seealso Wilson, this volume). Sophocles’ Thamyras is probably illustrated ona hydria from the middle of the century (fig. ). It has the words ‘Euaionis beautiful’ inscribed over the figure of an agitated woman, probablyThamyras’ mother Argiope, dancing under the influence of his music.Since we know that Aeschylus’ son Euaion was a tragic actor, we may belooking at a picture of characters played in the original production by asinging, strumming Sophocles and by Aeschylus’ dancing son.

Sophocles is supposed to have given up performing in his own playsbecause of his weak voice (Life ), a tradition which functioned as anaetiological narrative for the emergence of the specialist tragic singer.Sophocles is also said to have taken the talents of his actors into accountwhen composing their roles (Life ), and the vocal skills of the availablelead actors (for example, the Tlepolemos who often acted for Sophocles(schol. on Ar. Clouds )) must have influenced all the tragedians; anycompetent singer, for example, knew the exact range of his own voice and

E.g. IA –, $ %����� / $ %����� &�����$ &�����$, on which England () comments:‘probably it was the music which was mainly responsible for this double repetition’. On this kindof diction and repetition in Euripidean monodies see Barlow (b). But Euripides was not theonly tragedian to experiment with the new, freer form of actor’s song. Io in the Aeschylean PV(–) is an interesting early example of an astrophic monodist.

Damen () –. In Electra’s monody at Orestes –, for example, Euripides moves hisactor from strophic to astrophic form at the point where Electra’s grief moves beyond control tohysteria (, see Collard () vol. II, ).

Rome, Vatican (IGD , no. III. .). On the vase and on Euaion see further Green, thisvolume and Kaimio () .

Owen () , .

Edith Hall

Fig. Thamyras and his mother Argiope: played by Sophocles(?) and Aeschylus’ sonEuaion (Photo: J. R. Green)

needed to have his singing pitched accordingly. Actors who performedalongside star protagonists also had to be able to sing. In Euripides’Orestesthe deuteragonist who originally played Electra and Helen’s Phrygianservant, in support of the protagonist Hegelochos’ Orestes, must havepossessed a remarkable singing voice with a high tessitura. Aeschineshad to sing an antiphonal lament as Sophocles’ Creon in Antigone (prob-ably a tritagonist’s role, see Easterling, this volume), but also a strikingmonody as the blinded Polymestor in Euripides’ Hecuba (Dem. . ,see fig. ).

Callicratidas in Thesleff () .. See further Falkner, this volume. Information from several sources tells us more than usual about

the music to Euripides’ Orestes, an exceptionally popular play on the ancient stage. An importantpapyrus of the third or second century BC (Vienna G , see Pohlmann () –) preservesthe sung melody and accompaniment to seven lines delivered by the chorus (–), and thereis no reason to suppose that this music was not composed by Euripides himself. Dionysius ofHalicarnassus, writing in the Augustan era about the relationship of words to music, seems tohave been able to make a detailed consultation of a ‘score’ of Euripides’ Orestes (On Compositionof Words .., see Pohlmann () –). And a scholiast happens to have recorded theinformation that the actor playing Electra sang at a very high pitch (oxeiai phonei ), appropriate toa dirge, when asking the entering chorus to be quiet (schol. on Or. ). See also Damen ()–.

Stephanis () no. .a.

Fig. The blinded Polymestor in Euripides’ Hecuba ( c©The British Museum)

Edith Hall

VIRTUOSO TRAGOIDOI

Actors were becoming famous for their virtuoso specialisms by the fourthcentury – Nikostratos for his recital of tetrameters to the auloi andhismes-senger speeches, and Theodoros for his ‘natural’ delivery and femaleroles, which included several with important lyrics, such as Sophocles’Electra and Antigone. But it is in the third century that inscriptionsrecording the constitution of theatrical companies at festivals such asthe Delphic Soteria, combined with the Hellenistic Problems attributed toAristotle, begin to present a clear picture of a new kind of travellingprofessional actor whose special expertise was in singing. He was toremain a feature of cultural life in the Mediterranean region for eighthundred years.

Travelling professional tragoidoi, if successful in competitions, could en-joy huge earnings and fame, and be honoured by statues and civic rightsin the cities where they performed. Their only rivals were rhapsodes,and, later, star dancers of pantomime (see below). It is not surprisingthat a skilled singer might participate in several different types of eventat festivals, for example the Athenian Xenophantos of the first centuryBC, a rhapsode, tragic actor, and singer of paeans and choruses. The

Xen. Symp. .; it was proverbial to ‘tell everything like Nikostratos’ (Paroemiogr. .). See alsoCsapo, this volume.

Plut. Sympotic Questions-Moralia B, Dem. . (Stephanis () no. ). Theodoros wasalso famous for his performances of female roles in Euripidean tragedy (see Lada-Richards,this volume). On the enormous importance of the public opinion of an actor’s vocal skills,see Easterling (). On actors’ specialisms see also Green, this volume, Dihle () –,Ghiron-Bistagne () . Other actors may have specialised in male roles: see, for example,the enterprising third-century boxer/actor whose documented (all male) winning roles includedheroes renowned for the physical prowess, such as Heracles and Antaeus (Stephanis () no.). This impressive person may have been an Arcadian named Apollogenes (see Stephanis() no. ).

Gentili () ; Sifakis ( ) –. By the late Roman period the theatres came to be dominated by pantomimes and mimes, but

a certain diversity of entertainment was maintained, and there are still references to ‘tragicactors’ in the fourth century ( John Chrysostom, Homily on the Acts of the Apostles , PG .)and even as late as the sixth (Choricius Syn. Mim. , where they are listed with conjurors): seeTheocharidis () –. At Byzantium, at any rate, excerpts from old tragedies continued tobe sung by actors who wore high shoes and elaborate costumes, and took both female and maleroles (Theocharidis () –).

See e.g. Stephanis () nos. , . Stephanis () no. , see also nos. , . Outside the context of competitive festivals,

the distinctions between performers of tragedy and performers of epic must in practice oftenhave been blurred. See, for example, the travelling professional actor in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippeand Cleitophon (.), of the second century AD. He gave vocal displays of passages from Homer(��� . . . �'� �( )*�+��� �', ������� ���� ��!� &� ���� ��������). But the performances weretheatrical enough to require props (���+), which the context implies consisted of armour and

The singing actors of antiquity

singing profession was often practised by more than one member of thesame family, for example the third-century brothers Ouliades and Aris-tippos of Miletus, or the Theban rhapsode Kraton and his son Kleon,a tragoidos. Such singers may have begun as infant prodigies, perhapsspecialising in sung children’s roles such as that of Alcestis’ son in herEuripidean name-play: a boy actor from Cyzicus in the third century AD

(pais tragoidos) was honoured by the citizens of Ephesus.

The performances of tragoidoi, although masked and costumed, mustoften have resembled what we call concerts or recitals rather than the-atrical productions. The nineteenth Aristotelian Problem implies that thegrowing popularity of the tragoidos as entertainer, and the increasingascendancy of his solos over choral lyric, resulted from the greater ex-pressive and mimetic possibilities of the solo aria. Hellenistic tragoidoiconcentrated the pleasure their performances offered by excerpting themost delicious solo lyric highlights from tragedies. Solo recitals werefirst to rival and, together with pantomime, eventually to supersede theperformance of whole tragic texts.

A papyrus of the third century BC shows a programme, for example,which not only consists of excerpted lyrical highlights from Iphigenia in

Aulis, but rearranges their order. Another possibility was to extractseveral scenes from different tragedies on the same mythical figure, suchas the excerpts apparently linked by Achilles’ son Neoptolemus in the‘Oslo papyrus’, a beautiful document from which some ancient tragoidoslearned thewords andmelodies for a recital (fig. ). Astar Samianauletenamed Satyros, after his victory at a Pythian festival (probably in BC), demonstrated his versatility by offering his audience one song with achorus calledDionysus, and another on a presumably similar theme, fromEuripides’ Bacchae, which he accompanied on the cithara. A tragoidos,Kanopos, appears on a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus alongside the auleteEpagathos, who is named as the accompanist to forty ‘odes’ from six

weapons. They certainly included, for stage murders (���� �(� ���+���� ������), a trickdagger with a retractable blade, which saves the heroine’s life.

Stephanis () nos. , (see also nos. –), , . Stephanis () no. . A practice for which there is no firm evidence after the early third century AD (Barnes ()

–, Easterling and Miles () ). Leiden papyrus inv. . Thanks to Martin West for helpful advice on the musical papyri. Gentili () –, first edited by Eitrem, Amundsen andWinnington-Ingram (). The text,

which contains more than one version of some phrases, may have been written by the music’scomposer (West a) . For further discussion of the possible links between the excerpts inthis papyrus see Pohlmann () –.

Stephanis () no. .

Edith Hall

Fig. The ‘Oslo’ papyrus showing words and melodies for a recital of songsabout Neoptolemus (Photo: Adam Bulow-Jacobsen/AIP Archive)

‘dramas’. These seem to have been excerpts from (mostly Euripidean)plays, including Hypsipyle,Medea and Antiope.

Tragic singers appear at significant moments in the literature of theSecond Sophistic. Anecdotes concerning tragoidoi (usually singing thesongs of Euripidean heroines) demonstrate the charisma, status and au-thority these actors could acquire (see further Easterling, this volume).Plutarch’s account of the display of the dead Crassus’ head at a feastin Armenia is enlivened by a sung performance of part of Euripides’Bacchae, thus inviting the reader to draw a comparison between the

See Cockle () with plate xv. Cockle notes that one Claudius Epagathus was a member of theembassy of Dionysiac artists to the emperor Claudius in AD ( p. , with references).

The singing actors of antiquity

slaughter of Crassus and the murder of Pentheus (the actor was Jason ofTralles, Plut. Life of Crassus .–); another tragoidos anecdote functionsto underline the cultural aspirations of Juba II, aMauretanian client kingof the Roman empire in the early first century AD (Leonteus of Argossang from Euripides’ Hypsipyle, Athenaeus .e–f ).Despite the ancients’ voracious appetite for tragic singing, the most

detailed description of a tragoidos’ performance is an unflattering carica-ture. It is placed by Lucian in the mouth of Lykinos, an advocate of thedanced versions of tragedy offered by pantomime (On Dancing ):

What a repulsive and at the same time frightful spectacle is a man tricked outto disproportionate stature, mounted upon high clogs, wearing a mask thatreaches above his head, with a mouth that is set in a vast yawn as if he meant toswallow up the spectators! . . .The man himself bawls out (����"�), bendingbackward and forward, sometimes singing even his iambic lines (&����� � �����,�!� �( #������) and (what is surely the height of unseemliness)melodising(���!,�'�) his calamities, holding himself answerable for nothing but his voice,as everything else has been attended to by the poets, who lived at some time inthe distant past.

However exaggerated, some of these colourful details are illuminating.The singing actor provided a striking spectacle, wearing a mask witha distortedly gaping mouth, a view the dialogue elaborates by sayingthat the pantomime dancer’s masks, with their closed mouths, are muchmore beautiful (). This important difference between tragedy and pan-tomime is indeed supported by the depictions of masks on artefacts (seefigs. and and Jory, this volume). The information that both wordsand music have been provided by the poets of long ago also accords withother evidence from Lucian’s period, which implies that melodies werestill in circulation which were by (or at least believed to be by) Euripidesand Sophocles.In the first half of the second century AD the Milesians dedicated

an inscription to their fellow countryman G. Ailios Themison. Theycommemorated his victories at the Isthmian and other games, addingthat he was the ‘first and only’ individual to set Euripides, Sophoclesand Timotheus to music of his own. Ailios might simply have usedthemes from these famous poets in original new vocal works, but Lattewas probably correct in arguing that he provided his own music to old,

Translation adapted from Harmon (). ����� � ��'��� -.������� /������ � 0������� 1���', �������+�����. The inscription

was published by Broneer () = Stephanis () no. . See also Wilson, this volume.

Edith Hall

Fig. Ivory with mask of singing actor of tragedy (By permissionof the National Museum of Wales)

famous words in the classic repertoire. Did Ailios compose new musicfor the old lyric sections, for iambic trimeters, or for both?Here aproblemarises. What was (or was at least believed to be) the original music to oldtragedy was still familiar, but as far we know the fifth-century tragedians Broneer (); Latte (). Some tragoidoi were creative artists of another kind, victorious both

as performers of ‘old’ tragedies from the classic repertoire and as poets of ‘new’ tragedy (e.g.Stephanis () no. ).

The singing actors of antiquity

Fig. Glass jug with mask of singing actor of tragedy (Soprintendenza Archeologicaper la Toscana – Firenze)

had not composed themusic which by this time was often accompanying‘even’ iambic trimeters.In an oration on his liking for music Dio Chrysostom says that he

prefers listening to citharodes and actors than to orators. One reasonis that orators often extemporise, whereas citharodes and actors offerpoetry composed by ancient poets (Or. .):

Edith Hall

And the most of what they give us comes from ancient times (�2��� &���), andfrom much wiser men than those of the present. In the case of comedyeverything is kept; in the case of tragedy only the strong parts (�( �3� #�2���),it would seem, remain – I mean the iambics and portions of these that they stillgive (���4�����) in our theatres – but themore delicate parts (�( �3 ����"����)have fallen away, that is, the lyric parts.

Dio’s context in this dialogue is Cyzicus, a Milesian colony in whichG. Ailios Themison himself may have performed a few decades later. Diostates that only selected iambic portions of tragedy were being ‘given’.The context of the dialogue, which is comparing music to oratory and isinspired by the visit of a citharode to Cyzicus, suggests that these iambicparts are being sung, and sung, moreover, to music believed to be thework of the original poets.So where did singers (other than the innovative Ailios) get the music

for their iambics from? Ancient tunes were repetitive and conformed totraditional melodic patterns. In the current state of our evidence wemust imagine that singers performing passages from ‘old’ tragedy usedoriginal (or at least plausibly old-sounding) and recognisable scales andcadences from the lyrics and recitative, somehow transferring them tothe different rhythm of the iambics; Roman connoisseurs, at any rate,could tell from thenotes producedby thefirst breathof the accompanyingpipe whether a tragedy was Antiope or Andromache.

THE ART OF THE TRAGOIDOS

Papyrus discoveries allow us to sketch in outline the technical demandsmade on tragic singers. A fragment of a scene from a post-classicaltragedy on the fall of Troy implies that tragoidoi could be competentat musical ‘improvisation’. Cassandra deliriously describes Hector’s lastbattle against Achilles, but the papyrus includes the word ‘song’ (56�+)on seven occasions before verses probably delivered by her. These seemalmost certain to be musical directions to the actor playing Cassandrato improvise sung preludes to the words he had to memorise.

Comotti (b) . The papyri of Euripidean music show repeated playing up and down withinthe cluster of notes close together in pitch.

Cicero, Acad. . = fr. in Jocelyn ( ), who believes, however, that Cicero is referringto theatrical displays at, for example, funerals, rather than fully staged performances of entiretragedies (pp. –).

TrGF fr. adesp. = P Oxy. , first edited by Coles (). Perhaps the improvised singingconsisted of the type of exclamations Cassandra delivers in Aeschylus’ seminal Agamemnon

The singing actors of antiquity

However outlandish the lyric snatches improvised byHellenistic actorsplaying Cassandra, most of the original music of fifth-century tragedyhad used the ‘manly’ enharmonic scale. This means that the tragicsingerwill have sungmelodies based around the tonic and the fifth, whichrepeatedly contrasted tiny steps in pitch with a larger one of approxi-mately a major third. Euripides and Agathon began using the chromaticscale, which somewhat evened out the gaps between the notes and wasregarded as more effeminate than the enharmonic. Both these scalesgradually gave way to the diatonic, which dominated in the Romanperiod, and which, since its notes were at more equal distances apart,more closely resembled the modern western scale. But the tragedians’old enharmonic remained in use to accompany their works, even thoughonly the most outstanding musicians could attempt it, since the tinyintervals it entailed demanded strict precision.

Themelodies sung by tragic actors generally rose and then fell again inpitch, rather than beginning with a descent.While singing the same noterepeatedly was rare, most tunes predominantly moved stepwise in thescale to an adjacent note, and thus would now seem to be continuously inmotion (which perhaps illuminates the comparisonwith the nightingale),sinuous and writhing. In the tragic melodies preserved on papyri theoccasional leaps or dives of up to a ninth, on the other hand, seemdesigned to create an emphatic special effect. An important musicalpapyrus at Yale contains a dramatic Greek lyric song performed bya highly skilled baritone of the imperial era, quite possibly a tragoidos;

(e.g. , ; see Gentili () –). Coles () , suggests the possibility that the musicaldirection ‘is not contemporary with the composition of the play but a later interpolation whichreflects later methods of production’. However, at Cyclops , the Laurentian manuscript’s stagedirection to the actor playing Polyphemus to sing from within (5,�� 7������) may go back as faras Euripides (Seaford () ).

It was seen as a paradox that martial peoples like the Aetolians, who used the diatonic scale,were more manly and courageous ‘than singers in tragedy, who have [always] been accustomedto singing in the enharmonic’ (so the classical polemic on music preserved in the third-centuryBC ‘Hibeh’ papyrus .–, edited by Grenfell and Hunt (), pt. no. , pp. –, col. ii,translated by Barker () vol. I, ). The enharmonic divided the octave into two tetrachords(in modern terms, say, e to a and b to e), but within the tetrachords bunched the other availablenotes just above the bottom at tiny intervals of only about a quarter-tone, leaving a big gap abovethem: getting from e to f took two steps, but from f to a only one.

Aristid. Quint., On Music .–, translated in Barker () vol. II, . The difficult melodiesof tragic songs were made easier to perform by the supporting auloi: it was believed that too manyinstruments obscured a voice, but auloi or a lyre could define a sung melody ([Arist.] Probl. .,., see also Euripides’ Electra ). In the fragment of the musical score from Euripides’ Orestes(see above n. ), the instrumental notes suggest that the two pipes for the most part played thesame note, but occasionally diverged to play at an interval of a fourth (West (a) –).

West (a) –, .

Edith Hall

the melody involved a sudden leap down no less than an octave and athird. The editor of the papyrus argues that the sudden descent in pitchwas designed to represent the voice change caused by spirit possession,and that it marked the beginning of the first-person representation ofa prophet or prophetess’ utterances. This florid song is most unusualin requiring its performer to cover two octaves; most melodies seem tohave been composed within the compass of little more than one. Somerecently published papyrus fragments, whichmay record the vocal musicto a tragedy on Achilles by Sophocles or his homonymous grandson,reveal a striking tendency for the melody to ‘oscillate’ between two notesseparated by an interval ranging between a semitone and a fifth. Itis possible that such oscillation suggested the use of the verb elelizesthai(‘trill’ or ‘quiver’) used in sung descriptions of the nightingale’s song inboth Aristophanes’ Birds (–, see further below) and Euripides’Helen().The songs sung in these scales were in one of the musical ‘modes’,

which entailed recognisable ways of selecting notes (probably with dis-tinctive melodic formulae and cadences), and a particular tessitura. Theexciting Phrygianmode, which Sophocles is supposed to have introducedto tragedy, required high-pitched singing. The dignified Dorian wasoften used in tragic laments, the emotive Mixolydian was used for manychoruses, and the ‘soft’ Ionian, compared in Aeschylus’ Suppliceswith thenightingale’s song (), is associated by Aristophanes with the seductivesongs of prostitutes (Eccl. ). The active Hypophrygian and the mag-nificent Hypodorian, introduced by the innovative tragedian Agathon,were not used by choruses, but only by actors playing heroic roles;

virtuoso tragoidoi thus needed to be able to sing in special (and perhapsspecially difficult) modes which distinguished their solo singing from thecollective choral voice.Songs seem to have been sung at a speed similar to that at which they

would have been intuitively spoken:when aGreek poetwanted his poetryto be delivered at a slower or faster pace, he used more long or shortsyllables respectively. These two types of syllable provided the two basicnote values of Greek vocal music as they did Greek speech, one twiceas long as another – in modern terms, a crotchet and a quaver. Most

Johnson () . West () . These musical fragments are inscribed on the other side of cartonnage scraps

containing tragic lyrics. [Arist.] Probl. .. See also the Byzantine treatise on tragedy edited by Browning () par. . West (a) , .

The singing actors of antiquity

Greek music did not stretch out individual words by spreading theirsyllables over more than one note. Euripides, however, experimentedwith this kind of ornamentation, a development parodied in Frogs wherethe verb heilisso (‘twirl’) becomes heieieieieilisso (, ). This ornamentbecame popular for proper names, where a syllable is sometimes spreadover several notes. In a papyrus scrap of a dramatic lament for Ajax, hisname is sung ‘Ai-ai-i-an’ rather than ‘Ai-an’.

Although Aeschylean tragedy provides occasional internal musicaldirections, the early tragoidos learned his tunes by hearing other men –in theatrical families (see above) a father, brother, or uncle – sing them.

But as traditional melodic forms were replaced by more modern musicafter the fifth century BC, it became important to record the music totragedy. From at least as early as the fourth century Greek singers had asystem of musical notation based on amodification of the Attic alphabet.Significantly, the papyri containing literary texts with musical notationsare almost all copies of texts of drama, presumably designed for use bytragoidoi and associated performers – instrumentalists, a chorus, or atheatrical company.

Tragedy sometimes makes bodily demands on its singing actors; theactor playing Hecuba, for example, had to sing some of her lamentsfrom a prone position on the ground (see Valakas, this volume). Yet inancient visual art singers stand erect, with their heads thrownback, as if toopen up the throat and windpipe. Theophrastus says that when peoplesing high notes they ‘draw in the ribs and stretch out the windpipe,narrowing them by force’. The mouth was also opened wide: in anekphrasis the citharode Amphion ‘shows his teeth a little, just enoughfor a singer’. The tragic actor’s mask had a gaping mouth to allow thesound to emerge, and the actor’s ownmouth to be visible (see Green, thisvolume). The convention of themaskmay have survived partly because itconcealed the facial distortion necessary to the production of a voice big

West (a) , . Supplices , for example, suggests the use of the Ionian mode. On the musical modes see also

Wilson, this volume. Aural lessons in both song and instrumental playing appear on fifth-century vases, such as the

famous kylix by Douris in Berlin (Berlin , see Comotti (b) –). Henderson ( ) n. ,observes that a singer reads from a scroll on a vase of about BC, but points out that there isno evidence that the scroll contains any notation other than words.

Comotti (b) (see e.g. this chapter, fig. ). He adds that when singing low notes they widen the windpipe to shorten the throat (Porphyry,Commentary on Ptolemy’s Harmonics , translated in Barker () vol. II, ).

Philostratus, Imagines .–. I owe this reference to Peter Wilson.

Edith Hall

enough to fill outdoor theatres, although a good actor could exploit themask to intensify the awesome impressionhemade: Prudentius comparesthe mendacious but potent orator with ‘a tragic singer (tragicus cantor)who conceals his face beneath a hollow wooden mask, but breathessome great crime through its gaping hole (hiatus)’, (Contra Symmachum.–).The sound produced by singers was admired for its loudness, res-

onance, clarity, precision, and security of hold on notes (Plato, Rep..c; Arist. De aud. a–). Voices are admired for being ‘sweet’or ‘honey-like’; the nightingale in Aristophanes’ Birds is said to sing a‘liquid’ melody in a ‘clean’ voice (–); the most common epithet ofpraise is ligus or liguros, which refers to a clear sound, free from roughness,and is also used to describe the sound made by cicadas, birds, orators,auloi, lyres and panpipes. According to Isidore of Seville in the seventhcentury, who drew on earlier authors, the ‘perfect’ voice is male and‘high, to be adequate to the sublime; loud, to fill the ear; sweet, to soothethe minds of the hearers’.

Isidore says that women, like children and the sick, have ‘thin’ voices,which lack sufficient breath and sound like stringed rather than windinstruments. Such a perception of female vocal weakness may partlyexplain the dearth of women dramatic singers, despite the extensiveevidence for ancient female instrumentalists and dancers. The bestcandidate for a female tragoidos is the diva Athenion, celebrated in anepigram by Dioscorides for her stunning performance of a work entitledthe Horse (AP V. ). This just might have been the Greek prototypeof Livius Andronicus’ tragedy Equus Trojanus, in which case Athenionmight have sung the role of Cassandra. But other evidence impliesthat Athenion’s Horse was more likely a concert aria. The heroine of thesecond-century novel Leucippe and Cleitophon is able to perform, in privateat least, both epic and lyric songs. A unique musical papyrus fragment

Hunningher () –. West (a) . Etymologiarum sive originum libri xx .. Isidore proposes that there are ten categories of singing

voice: the sweet (fine, full, loud and high), penetrating (those which can sustain a note evenly anunusually long time and continuously fill a place, like trumpets), thin, fat, sharp, hard, harsh,blind, prettily flexible (vinnola from vinnus, a softly curling lock of hair), and perfect.

See Webb, this volume, and e.g. the elder Seneca’s report of women dancing on private pan-tomime stages all over Rome (Q Nat ..). The Kleopatra listed with tragic and comic actorsat Delos in BC was not an actress but a specialist trick dancer (Webster () ).

Rostagni () vols. ., – and ., –. .; she sings part of the sixteenth book of the Iliad and a lyric in praise of the rose. See also

Tarsia’s autobiographical monody in The Story of Apollonius King of Tyre ().